- Zerush ( @Zerush@lemmy.ml ) 6•2 years ago
None of both are democracies, neo-liberalism and democracy are a oximoron, they are disguised feudalism.
I don’t think it’s fair to characterize China as being neoliberal. I’ve seen no evidence of that being the case.
- Zerush ( @Zerush@lemmy.ml ) 1•2 years ago
It’ so neo-liberal as any US, EU or Rusia, only disguised in different way, in all of these markets, Banks and Big Companies are more important than the people, In none of them does the popular sovereignty, that authentic democracy requires, exist. They are still feudal systems with more or less rights and freedoms for the citizen.
China is a state governed by the Communist party where Marxism-Leninism is the official state ideology. 87.6% of young Chinese identify with Marxism, and the party has 95 million members. I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that these people do in fact understand what socialism is.
All the essential industry is state owned, and capitalists are not in charge of the government. One simple test to consider is that China doesn’t suffer from regular crashes seen under capitalism. An inherent contradiction within capitalism is that the capitalists always want to cut pay for their employees to minimize the costs, while they also require consumers with enough spending power to consume the commodities they produce. This is why capitalism results in regular economic crashes when wages fall below the point where consumption can keep up with the rate of commodity production. At that point you end up with overproduction and a crash. If China was capitalist then it should be experiencing these kinds of crashes regularly just like actual capitalist nations are in the Western world.
Pandemic handling is another clear example of this. If companies were more important than people then China would’ve sacrificed people for profit the way every capitalist country has. Every capitalist country prioritized business interests over human lives. Meanwhile, every socialist country like China, Cuba, and Vietnam did the opposite.
China consistently directs labor and resources towards the needs of the majority. As a result, quality of life in China continues to steadily improve and the government is actively working on doing things like eliminating poverty, creating public infrastructure, providing healthcare, housing, food, and education for all citizens. Chinese government practically eliminated poverty, and in fact China is the only place in a world where any meaningful poverty reduction is happening. If we take China out of the equation poverty actually increased in real terms:
China also massively invests in infrastructure having used more concrete in 3 years than US in all of 20th century and built 27,000km of high speed rail in a decade.
90% of families in the country own their home giving China one of the highest home ownership rates in the world. What’s more is that 80% of these homes are owned outright, without mortgages or any other leans. Real wage (i.e. the wage adjusted for the prices you pay) has gone up 4x in the past 25 years, more than any other country. This is staggering considering it’s the most populous country on the planet.
Finally, Chinese government has recently passed massive regulation on big business and released a a five-year blueprint calling for greater regulation of vast parts of the economy. The government has also openly stated that the era of capital expansion is over and the interests of the majority outweigh the interests of shareholders.
None of these things happen under capitalism. In fact, we can directly compare China to India. Both countries started roughly in the same place with India going the capitalist route. The difference is very stark.
- TheAnonymouseJoker ( @TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml ) 5•2 years ago
Bro that just propaganda!!! USA USA USA!!! - average neoliberal/neoconservative